Once Upon a Time season 5, episode 21, “Last Rites,” just finished airing, and this week brought about the end of one reign and the beginning of another.
Everyone is back in Storybrooke (except Hook), but not all is well in the world — above or below.
Zelena is still worrying about Regina, but it’s Hades she should be concerned with. It’s so completely obvious he’s up to something, but Zelena’s love has blinded her to his manipulations. In fact, she trusts him so much, she’s willing to let him hold onto her baby. Why do I have a feeling this is going to come back to bite all of them in one way or another?
After Zelena leaves, King Arthur runs from the woods and literally slides to a stop at Hades’ feet. Where has he been and how did he get away? It’s been so long, I can’t remember — and I don’t really care. I thought these two would team up considering they’re both on the wrong side of our heroes, but Hades is quick to snap Arthur’s neck and send him to the Underworld. It seems like this is part of his plan, but having another soul in the Underworld possibly working against him doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Merida makes a cameo in this episode, though her time here is short. She’s used to find Arthur’s body and is quickly discarded again. Granted, she isn’t really wrapped up in the main part of the drama, but she’s such a strong character that I’d love for her to stick around.
Zelena’s naivete is horribly apparent in this episode, but can we really blame her for siding with Hades here? For all she knows, he’s abandoned her once, whereas Regina has rejected her time and time again. She has spent a lifetime hating her sister, but only a short while morning the loss of her potential love. Obviously she’s wrong to trust Hades and not her sister, but it’s not surprising this is the path she’s taking.
Hades is slick, and his manipulations of Zelena are incredibly well-placed. He knows if he walks away from her saying he’ll turn himself in that she’ll stop him and insist they fight her sister and the others together. And that’s exactly what she does. Hades reveals the Olympian crystal, which can only mean bad news for our heroes.
Hades says his beating heart was the only way he could repair it, and here we have his master plan. The real question now is whether or not Hades truly cares about Zelena. He needed her to repair the crystal, but will he continue to want her once that’s in play? They shared true love’s kiss, so he must have feelings for her, but it still doesn’t sit right with me. Their romance was too fast, and his continued manipulations stink of an ulterior motive. Hey, that kind of sounds like Rumpel.
Elsewhere, Regina and Robin are trying to get into City Hall in order to save the baby. They fight, with Regina still defending Zelena and Robin clearly still harboring angry feelings about the current situation, but they also quickly make up. Pro tip: Whenever one character says “you are my future” to another character, it’s probably going to end in a funeral.
Rumpel keeps getting worse as a character (I’m sure Belle will forgive you for threatening to beat her father an inch from death), but luckily his role in this episode was minimal. Emma’s part was much more interesting. Everyone continues to tell her how to grieve, but she knows she can’t until Hook is able to move on. Only stopping Hades will allow that to happen, and for once I don’t think Emma is in denial of her feelings. She’s headstrong, yes, but she’s already said goodbye to Killian; now she just needs to make sure he can move on to a better place. Her emotions are raw, and this does make her a little like a loose cannon (I mean, she goes to Rumpel for goodness’ sake), but even though she’s taking some risks, I do believe her head is on straight.
Speaking of Hook, a new bromance appears as he teams up with the recently deceased Arthur. Hook is quick to enlist the former king’s help in finding a way to stop Hades, but I have a hard time believing that his character flaws are wiped away so quickly. Yes, he’s doing this in order to go to a better place, but wouldn’t that self-centered reason kind of negate any altruistic sacrifice?
In the end, it hardly matters, as Arthur saves the day and decides not to take his chance by walking into the light (probably a good call). Instead, Hook places the pages about Hades back into the book so Emma can find them in Storybrooke and walks into the light. (At this point my heart was pounding. They wouldn’t really kill him, right? RIGHT?) Arthur stays to fulfill the prophecy and repair the broken kingdom. So is he the God of Death now? I don’t think it works that way, dude.
After the punch to the gut that was happier times when Emma and Hook were together at the ball, we get another low blow when Robin jumps in front of the lightning from the Olympian crystal and sacrifices himself for Regina. It was a slow, quiet goodbye between the two, and knowing that there is nowhere else to go when you’re killed by the crystal, it rang of a finality we rarely get on Once Upon a Time.
Lana Parilla continues to be an absolute highlight of this show, whether she’s making quips at the expense of the others or she’s crying her eyes out in a heartfelt plea for her sister to listen to her. Love is sacrifice, she says. It’s about giving up everything for the one you love. Hades would never do that for Zelena (and neither would Rumpel for Belle), and so the wicked witch plunges the crystal into Hades’ beating heart, thus killing the God of Death.
Robin’s funeral is emotional even before we get to the part where Roland places an arrow on his casket and Zelena shows up with the newly-christened baby Robin. But nothing compares to the reuniting of Hook and Emma, which was a reward to the pirate captain, from Zeus, for helping to end the damaged reign of Hades.
The episode ends with Rumpel plucking a piece of the Olympian crystal from Hades’ ashes, claiming Storybrooke as his kingdom. Is it too much to ask for Zeus to spare a lightning bolt to bring about his demise?
Overall, this episode continued last week’s trend of emotional, action-packed television. Now that Hades is gone, perhaps the show can get back to the core characters and take care of some of the ones that have proven time and time again they will not be able to change.
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